


Alternate: Chosenpoint

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Series: Chosenpoint Collection [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: AgriCorps (Star Wars), F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt With Possibility of Comfort, Mandalore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 10:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11781486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: An alternative ending for Chosenpoint.Somebody takes a trip to Mandalore.





	Alternate: Chosenpoint

 

“Suffered, Mandalore has.” Yoda gave one nod, knowing that the youngsters seemed to think the gesture spoke of great wisdom. “To feed its people, dependent on outside resources, it has become. Farms, once an important part of Mandalorian culture were.”

The young Duchess watched him in concern. “Are my people in danger, Master Yoda?”

“Hmm. Think, I do, that request the Order for an Agricultural Jedi's assistance, you should. Lifeless is Mandalore's surface. Lifeless it need not remain. Develop crops that can survive such a climate, such a Jedi could.”

“Our economy is somewhat stable,” Satine pointed out. “Are not such Jedi more desperately needed elsewhere?”

“My advice, I think you should take.”

Satine gave a slow nod. “Our scientific base is still fairly weak. We have only had three classes graduate from our universities so far. To collaborate with someone who can hear the plants' concerns, and sense the connections and strengths of the ground would be of immense help. And you're right. The lack of farms has been felt on Mandalore.”

“Then a formal request, make.”

And when the connection ended, Yoda smiled to himself.

 

* * *

 

Yoda didn't seem particularly surprised when a request for assistance came in from the government of Mandalore.

They definitely needed help.

“A member not yet claimed, we have. Seven years into training he is, ready to step out and fight famine. Speaks the native language, he does, and knew the planet before destroyed it was. A long project it will be. Live for many years on Mandalore, the Jedi would have to. Someone who can relate to the people needed is. Hmm. Yes. Send Obi-Wan Kenobi we should.”  
And various members of the Council tried to hide sudden, amused smiles and pretend  _not_ to notice Yoda felt certain he was well on his way to giving a broken heart a chance to mend.

Maybe even be whole again.

Not a voice of dissent was raised, and the decision was made.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan hesitated in the hatchway of the transport.

It had been thirteen years since he last set foot on Mandalore.

Thirteen years since he'd seen  _her_ in person.

Seven years since his dreams had shattered.

_I am afraid._ He wouldn't lie to himself about it. He peered out at the giant dome city, where thousands of people raised from infancy to bloodthirsty cruelty lived side-by-side in peace.

_Satine's dream seems to be coming along nicely._

It was an accomplishment almost too stunning to believe.

_Courage, Kenobi._

He'd faced his master, held his head up, and felt that man undo his braid. He hadn't wept. He'd thanked Qui-Gon for the years he'd invested in him, turned, and walked away.

Kept it together until he'd reached the razor that awaited him. The Jedi holding it had placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Been kind through those first agonized tears.

_If I could endure all of that, I can endure this._

At the base of the landing ramp he found a procession waiting. Six ceremonial guards at attention, several members of the Mandalorian government, and a handful of young Mandalorian scientists— the first trained on Mandalore with any form of validity.

_The results of the colleges Satine founded._

She'd had to bring in professors from off-world for so many of the subjects.

It was her dream to someday have  _Mandalorians_ teaching Mandalorians.

_Someday, Satine._

He  _wanted_ her to succeed. He wanted her planet to thrive. Remembering it lent strength to his knees as he strode down the ramp.

_Jealousy has no place here._

_At least one of us is making a difference._

And there, at the front of the gathering,  _she_ stood.

Obi-Wan's heart leaped into his throat, but he kept his expression carefully professional.

“Welcome, Jedi Kenobi,” Satine greeted, her words warm even in their reserved formality. “Thank you for being willing to help us rebuild.”

“I hope to make your land green once more,” he murmured, bowing and lifting her hand to press a light kiss to its back.

 

* * *

 

He held it together while the obligatory introductions were made. He held it together while being shown to his room.

_His_ room.

He made it until the door was closed behind him and he'd taken three steps into the room, and then everything within him collapsed.

_This is home now._

He sank to his knees, hung his head, and tried to hold back the tears as he choked on his grief.

The death of his dream had dragged on for seven cruel years, refusing to just  _die_ and leave him to recover. Maybe it was because he'd been living in the epicenter of where others  _had_ achieved that very dream...

Maybe here, where he belonged now, alone and so very far away from home, he would finally come to terms with his loss, and begin to see a future that was anything other than dead-end drudgery.

He felt the sad thrum of his lightsaber crystal in the pocket over his heart.

_At least you're here with me,_ he thought.

A crystal without a saber.

A Jedi without a knighthood.

Soon to be working with plants without a place to grow.

An odd song had him blinking his eyes and drawing his head up. Looking to his right he saw a low table, and on it, a single flowerpot. Within it lived a glittering Force-presence that reached out to him, singing to his sorrow in comfort.

He shuffled over to it and sat back on his heels, having to focus to see it with his eyes instead of just the goodwill and empathy reaching out for him.

A stubby little plant, with seriously impressive prickles that made him very wary of putting his fingers  _anywhere_ near, apparently a succulent, and a shade of medium green.

“Hello,” he whispered, reaching out to it with his mind.

It curled little Force fingers around his presence, like tiny vines twining into his heart.

_You don't see me as broken._

Obi-Wan found his hands curled around the warm little pot, holding the plant close.

A low knock at the door caused him to stand, carrying the pot with him to the door.

“Who is it?” he called, hoping his voice wasn't tearstained.

“It's me, Ben.”  
Obi-Wan allowed the door to open and stepped back. Satine followed him into the room, smiling when she saw what he held.

“I hope it's been friendly?”  
“You obtained a Force-sensitive plant for me?” Obi-Wan somehow found his voice. It sounded sore from misuse.

She gave him a sad smile. “To leave a home where you continuously had contact? I know it's not much, but I did not want you to be entirely without the intimacy you were raised with.”

“It's not small. It's— I needed it. Thank you.”

“How are the rooms? I can find you different ones if they do not suit.”

“I— haven't looked at them,” Obi-Wan admitted.

Satine nodded, and Obi-Wan could sense her longing. She reined it valiantly in, saying quietly, “Is there anything you need before I leave you in peace?”

Panic gripped his heart.

“Don't leave,” he whispered, something akin to begging touching his voice. “Please, I—  _Satine._ ”

And then a hand was cradling his head as tears blinded him again and his shoulders heaved. The other hand took his little soul hugging plant from his clutching fingers, and soon he found himself lying curled on the bed, his head resting on Satine's lap as she sat with her legs hanging off the side.

“I've got you,” she whispered. “Udesi, Mando'ad.”

But for once, the urge to be  _easy, child of Mandalore_ did not soothe him.

Before, it had been something that would come spilling out of her soul, something that bypassed  _thought_ which would have reminded her that he  _wasn't_ a child of Mandalore.

_Except... now..._

_Now I'm the babe abandoned on her doorstep, and Mandalore has taken me in._

The endearment  _hurt_ now.

It was too true.

“K'uur,” Satine whispered.

He shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut. He couldn't seem to stay his broken sobs, the wounds he'd been trying to heal aching furiously in the face of a terrible homesickness, loneliness, and undesired future.

His father had thrown him away for someone new, someone more powerful and quicker to learn. At the eleventh hour, his dream had been snatched away, but the Force tingling in his fingers mocked the knowledge that this specific door was closed to him. The life he craved felt so  _close,_ even while he knew it to be infinitely far away.

Being sent to the AgriCorps at the age of thirteen had been painful. The most painful thing he'd experienced in all of those thirteen years.

But to be sent again, after having experienced desperate, clawing,  _almost triumphant_ hope?

So he trembled and mourned, and Satine held him and whispered a net of safety over his head, locking out anything that might try to further attack him, guarding him in his most vulnerable hour.

Staunch and sure and true.

Exhaustion stemming from the fact he'd been too wired to sleep on the flight here, his weeping slowed to silent tears as Satine passed her hand over his hair and sang, low and steady.

His body recognized the singing, remembered the horrific wound it had suffered when he'd been here last.

Remembered that terrible time when the only way of fighting back against the pain was clinging to that voice.

It remembered, and it dragged him towards sleep,  _quick,_ before the pain returns—

_I'm not wounded now,_ he thought, but he could not hold his eyelids open.

_Hurry, hurry_ his body urged.  _Submit to her._

He didn't mean to sleep. He was just going to wait a few seconds before sitting up and allowing her to retire to find her  _own_ sleep...

 

* * *

 

It was only after the Jedi she loved had fallen asleep that Satine silenced her song.

She smiled faintly down at the soul cradled here, completely at her mercy, and cherished the fact that this man would not sleep in the presence of most people. Too wary, too used to danger.

And here he'd fallen asleep without a second's thought, placing himself in her care. His life in her hands, his soul at her feet, his deepest wounds left unguarded.

_And he is so terribly wounded._

He'd given one man the power to wreck this much devastation in his life, and with it the trust that he wouldn't.

Fury, cold and vicious flooded Satine's soul. She let it sweep through and instead of focusing on the injustice here, the terrible cruelty of loss, she saw the tiny plant in its pot and schemed as to how to make Obi-Wan's stay here carry as little pain as possible.

_Anger will trouble his sleep. He will feel it and rest uneasy._

Anger would not help him heal.

So she redirected the energy into plans.

There would be time enough to hate Qui-Gon Jinn when she was no longer the keeper of a Jedi's open, unshielded, injured mind.

For now, she would bathe it with peace, calm, safety—

Offer it a place where it could recover if it could.

_You are more important than Qui-Gon Jinn's betrayal._

_Sleep well, dear one._

_Sleep easy._

_I will not let any terrors of night come near you._

_Rest._

And in the dimness of the room, all that could be seen of her was the glint of her eyes, instinctively watching over him with the vigilance of a guardian predator.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan slowly drifted towards awareness, a warm light beginning to soften the edges of the room.

He blinked his eyes open experimentally, found his head hurt, he couldn't breathe through his nose, and he felt utterly drained.

The soft light of predawn cradled Satine's form, leant a gentleness to her expression where she sat sleeping, vaguely leaned against the wall at the head of the bed.

Obi-Wan gingerly sat up. “Hey,” he whispered, reaching out a hand to touch the back of her own.

In the space of a heartbeat he found himself in a lock that threatened his neck with a swift break.

She'd managed to retrain every reflex, every response—

_Except_ for those launching adrenaline-fueled from a sound, deep sleep.

Obi-Wan went very still, knowing that the less resistance she met, the sooner she would regain control over her mind and body.

The hold vanished, allowing him up.

He'd long ago stopped worrying about the fact that she could get the drop on him. There had been a time in the early months of their acquaintanceship where he'd feared and resented her Jedi-hunting skills.

Now?

Now it felt almost like a treasure, all his own. Her lethal competence was a secret that very few people knew...

But  _he_ carried it in his heart. Both that,  _and_ the knowledge of why she fought so sternly against patterns driven into her by thousands of years of tradition.

“You didn't have to stay,” he murmured as she stretched her neck. He could sense its aching from the odd position it had fallen into sleep in. “I didn't mean to trap you.”

“I would not leave you to suffer so terribly alone. You needed sleep, and you would not have found it without a guardian.”

The plant felt the first rays of sunlight touch its skin. In the Force it stirred, a burst of joy that assailed his heart with a vigor that it would have taken effort to repel. A new day!

And it was thirsty.

_Alright._

Obi-Wan stood, nearly stumbled from a leg that he couldn't quite feel because he must have cut off circulation while he slept curled up, and headed for the refresher. He located a cup, filled it with water, and returned to his little roommate, offering the drink it desired.

It took a moment, and then satisfaction came spilling through the Force, cuddling Obi-Wan's heart with a content he hadn't been able to find in years.

It wasn't  _his,_ but he could feel it anyway, and his heart longed desperately to find such a beautiful feeling of his own.

He wanted to escape the sadness that hounded his footsteps, the dull mist that shrouded his every waking moment, and a good chunk of his dreams as well.

 

 


End file.
